Warren

Well, at last it's done. In 3-4 days time the silicone will be 100% cured and then the fill test. All going well it will be on display at the fish show next weekend. Have asked Cees to add some photos to this pages.

Well, that it explains it then!

Maybe, maybe not, depends if Fi is there to keep an eye on me!!

Where do they get all the babies from, Blenheim is only a small town!

Do you mean Lineatus too? It would be good to get some extra nice females here (not fish)! AH, yip, know about the auction in Napier over labour weekend (I do live there). I'll probably be one of the people organising the lots??

Bugger, just lost my only female. Anyone got a spare I can buy / trade something for?

I learnt that it takes time for things to settle (1-2 weeks minimum as a general rule) and the bigger the tank, the longer it takes. If you are going to muck with things, do only 1 thing at a time then wait for the settling period to finish before changing anything else.

Well... Its taken a long time, but the big tank is nearly done. Have just spent most of the weekend fibreglassing it. Later today I can sand the fibreglass ready for the Gelcoat tomorrow. Then a few days to fully cure. This coming Friday night the front glass sheet will be fitted, which gives the silicone 1 week to fully cure before it is used over Labour Weekend for the fish show (assuming no leaks or glass breakage). Will take some photos next weekend so everyone can have a sneak-preview of the finished product.

Sounds like expensive dirt to me. Why not make it yourself! There is plent of information available on planted tank substrate fertilisers and even more available about the minerals and trace elements required for marines. The elements are not hard to find at chemical suppliers. Just get the right quantities, mix it with a little water an add it to the mud / clay. Its what I do. It only costs about $100 to make 100kg of the stuff (if you buy the clay).

The other reason it might give different results is because it is cheap! I have one too, and its never given a decent measurement in my tanks or in a sample taken from a tank. It maybe due to the low level of TDS is the tank water. Because I use RO and add only the minimum amount of buffering salts + CO2 and H2SO4 to balance the pH, there may not be enough electrolytes in the water for the pH probe to work well. It certainly works ok on a more concentrated sample (>200ppm TDS). My water is approx 20ppm KH. It appears the probe only works with a KH greater than 80. This is only in my tanks and there are probably a lot of other factors that effect it. It is interesting to note however, the Dupla Alpha CO2 controller states very strongly that the KH must be over 68ppm to work properly. It is for 1 of 2 possible reasons: 1: So the pH probe works 2: So you buy their very expensive KH buffer. Back to the cheap probe. The Dick Smith item is very cheap for a pH probe. I got mine for approx $80.00 some time ago. A good quality probe usually costs wholesale about $250.00, - and thats just the glass bit. The meter part costs even more. These types of proffesional / industrial probes work much better. I tried one on my tank sample and it worked reasonably consistantantly. Had to give it back though, - cost too much to keep.

Yeah, but you want icky black muck at the bottom of the gravel. The good old Big Mac breaks down nicely to black gunk. Granted, it is slow release due to all the preservatives, but that just means it lasts longer before you have to visit again. The high level of phosphate is also benificial. (I wonder if Marmite (or Vegemite is you are an Ausi) would work the same??)

The way you worded it sounded like you only did it only once. I was only stating the obvious because its amazing how many people look the obvious in the face and completely miss the point!

Watch out for too much blue light - UV. It may cause excess green algae in a freshwater tank.

Maybe when you want to test the pH, you take a sample in a clean glass and measure that. Then there will be no interferance!!??

It shouldn't effect your pH much anyway. You'll only be adding a few ppm's of NH4 so the effect on pH will be very small.

I have a friend who used to have 300+ tanks in a separate room in his house (actually a warehouse). He used induvidual heaters in every tank. Lots of $$ for heaters wot! The room temperature was a constant 26'C, heated by the tanks. It would have worked just as well if the room was heated to 26'C and the heater were removed from the tanks. The room was very well insulated so the cost of the power was mainly for heating water after water changes (done every 3-4 days). He was looking for a way to reduce the power bill. He looked at gas heating, but it causes too much condensation in a well insulated room. Also have to watch the CO2 level in the air if there is little or no circulation with outside air. The best method was to use about a 6.8kW airconditioner and 10 medium sized stiring fans spread round the room. It was a big room too (approx 9m x 16m). It never eventuated however and now he doesn't have the tanks anymore.

What's wrong with Mac'ers its great junk food. It would probably work really well as substrate fertiliser too.

Hi Cees, We currently use MDaemon for email. It has inbuilt spam blocking using an internet based spam cache. Its very good and only rejects the odd email that is almost genuine. If you are silly enough to put a subject title like "Pictures for you" or "Check This Out" then of course it will be rejected. Generally it is very good. It does not however stop people who have bought your email address from the scumbags who collect and sell them from targeting you with their crap!! Virus scanning is done using Norton Antivirus Corporate Edition Ver 7.6 It is very good too. It automatically rolls out to any new machine connected to the system. It checks all PC's on the network every 2 minutes to see if they are up-to-date. It checks Nortons website every hour for new updates. If it finds a files / email that has a signature it does not recognise it does this; quarantines the file on the central quarantine server, emails the virus the symantec who create a fix within 24 hours who then send it back to our server. It fixes the file if it can and delivers it back where it found it. If it cannot fix it, it emails me and I can then make the decision to destroy it or not. Its about the highest level of virus security you can get (also quite pricey - about $4500 including licences). Its only a fraction of the cost of getting a virus that spreads throughout the company however.

No, IT stand for 'it', - Warren can you fix it?

I'll add my bit. Since the laws of physics require that any given mass requires the same amount of energy to heat it to a given temperature regardless of the method, it is sensible to assume that the method used to heat the mass should use the least amount of energy you have to pay for. Use an airconditioner (a good one) that has at least 4:1 conversion efficency. Then you only have to pay for 400W of energy to get 2000W of heating. Insulate the room very well since once the water is heated, all you pay for is the loss in the system. Put stirring fans in the room so the air temperature does not layer.

Get some decent virus scanning software. I am IT manager at my work (amoungst other things) and we've never been infected by a virus ever. We get sent approx 5 a day out of the 600-700 emails sent to us. Our virus software stops on it quick. We are permanently connected to the internet through a firewall and broadband connection. As long as you have good scanning software, keep it very up-to-date and are sensible about what files you try to open, you will be ok. For the cost of the software it is well worth it. Think of it like this, $125 for scanning software or reformat and reinstall OS, hmmm... I'll take the $125 and get the software any day!!

They are Cichlasoma (Theraps) synspilum. I have 2 I got recently from the LFS. They are growing fast. The colours are just starting to form (only about 100mm long). They get their name from the colouration. They actually come in many different colours in the wild, but the most common aquarium colours are; mainly blue with red under the gills and a yellow tinge on the back. Hence the strawberry-blue naming. Watch out, they are medium-aggressive and grow quite big (200mm+).

I've got 3 tanks in my lounge with the following filter setups: 1. Diameter 900mm, 1000mm tall, volume 580L. Has 1 Big Borneo Tiger + 1 Big Mystus Catfish. Filter = Trickle Filter using Effisubstate + Siporax media + Spa Pool Pleated Cartride Filter. Turnover = 4000L/H using Grundfos FP3 Pump (Now Oase' 4000). 2. 1800 x 600 x 600mm, volume 680L. Has 2 Big Oscar, 2 Big Jags, 2 Big Chocolate Cichlids, 1 Leporinis, 1 Very Big Cigar Shark (330mm). Filter = Trickle Filter using Effisubstate + Siporax media + Spa Pool Pleated Cartride Filter. Turnover = 6000L/H using Grundfos FP4 Pump (Now Oase' 6000). 3. 2400 x 850 x 650mm, volume 1200L. Has 10 Adult Discus (now), 200 Neons, 50 Rummy-nose, 6 Blue Rams, 6 Cerviceps, 20 Black-line Flying Fox. Filter = Trickle Filter using Effisubstate + Siporax media + Spa Pool Pleated Cartride Filter. Turnover = 6000L/H using Grundfos FP4 Pump (Now Oase' 6000). All tanks run very clear. Up close on the 8' tank you cannot see any muck in the water right through the 2400 length (not even any cloudiness). These tanks have turnover rates between 6-9 times per hour. Some may consider it overkill, but they are amoungst the cleanest tanks I've seen in the country. Go for the biggest pump you can afford to buy and run. Remember, a pump will use close to its purchase price (approximately) in electricity every year. You cannot over-filter but you can under-filter.

You may have no buffering capacity in that tank. Check your KH and GH, also your NO3 level. If the KH and/or GH are low (below 2dH (30ppm)) and/or your NO3 is high (>40ppm), this will help cause the pH to crash. Try not adding the fertiliser for a week and I bet the pH still falls. The plants won't care for a week and the algae won't get a hold either. Give it a try. Do you have a log that is leaking lots of humic acids?? I'd look for something other than the fertiliser. If it works ok in other tanks then its obviously not the problem.

Don't worry about the pH. You are adding such a tiny amount of the mix that it won't effect your tanks pH. If you never do water changes then the tank pH will slowly drop. You can add the baking soda to the tank. First dissolve it in lots of water. I use approx 1 Litre per teaspoon. The Baking Soda mixed with water then gets added slowly using some fine tubing. It takes about 1 hour to drain into the tank. This stops the fish getting pH shocked!